On Fear, Water, and the Work That Keeps Going

There is a shamanic headdress — two faces, two creatures — that has been following me for years.

One side is a dragon. The other is a shark. Both are made from cloth, shells, embroidery, hair, feathers, found fragments. The shell holes are ones I found that way — holes already there, already made by the sea. I just strung them. They make a sound when you move.

I started making it during my residency at La Escocesa in Barcelona in 2019, as part of a research project about cultural identity, mythology, and tradition in contemporary life. But it was also, very honestly, about fear. My fear of deep water. My fear of what lives below the surface.

The dragon comes from a split tradition. In Slavic and Catalan mythology, the dragon is a creature of fire, rain, fertility — it connects sky, water, and earth. In Serbian mythology specifically, there are two kinds of dragon: as, the good one associated with rain and immortality, and ala, the bad one that brings storms and ruins crops. This distinction — a creature that can be both protector and destroyer depending on its nature — felt true to something. In Western Christian tradition, dragons are always evil, always to be slain. I was more interested in the version that could be either.

The shark I chose because it is my specific fear. The shadow beneath the surface. The thing my imagination magnifies into danger even when the water is shallow.

The headdress covers the eyes on purpose. It is a shamanic mask. In shamanic journeys, you are not looking outward — you are looking inward. The idea was: I do not need to see. I am seeing with other eyes.

The performance at the beach came after months of research — drawing sharks, learning which species live in the Mediterranean, writing letters to the sharks while sitting in a golden corner in my studio made from emergency blankets, a projector hanging above, video playing on salt spread across the floor. I drew protective symbols on my body in black crayon. I used sage and feathers. And then, fully dressed, wearing the headdress, I entered the water.

The question from the VSG group that stayed with me afterward was not about fear. It was about process. The mask is a finished object — a work on its own. But the investigation of my relationship with water is not finished. I am still taking photos from the same pier in Barcelona, one specific view from above without the horizon. I have been doing this for ten years, and the technology keeps changing — the phones change, the apps change, the filters change — and the photos change with them, and the paintings change with them. Each year the water looks different because the light is different and because I am different.

Someone in the meeting said: what if you made another series of drawings now? To see how the fear has changed?

I got the idea while we were talking: I could make paintings from the abstract drawings — not more literal water paintings, but paintings that come from that darker, less controlled place. Let the fear stay in its form and see what it looks like on canvas.

I don't think the fear is cured. I go a little deeper into the sea than I used to. I understand the sharks better. I have read what they are, where they are, what they are doing. Knowledge changes fear — not by eliminating it but by changing its shape.

The work keeps going. That is the most honest thing I can say about it.